Lent 26: Embracing Resilience Everyday

Tara and guest Rev. Ellen Corcella—author of "Walk With Me: A Journey Through the Landscape of Trauma" and host of Faith and Resilience Podcast—talk about resilience during Lent and in everyday life. They discuss resilience as both internal and beyond oneself, rooted in meaning-making, adaptability, and connection rather than individualism. Tara shares her evolving definition of theopoetics as creative engagement with God in community, and reflects on Julian of Norwich’s hazelnut vision—God made it, loves it, and keeps it—as a grounding way to notice “thin spaces” of the sacred in ordinary moments. Tara describes practices like Lectio Divina and Visio Divina, using scripture, art, doodling, and poetry for contemplation, and reads her poem “Thin Space Day,” which locates pilgrimage-like holiness in daily routines (carpool, mailbox walks, lunchtime, coffee, commutes). The conversation connects thin spaces to Lent’s wilderness metaphor, emphasizes God’s presence in both mountaintops and valleys, and reframes “all manner of things be well” (AMOT) as holding both consolation and desolation. Ellen shares where to find her book, podcast and website (www.ellencorcella.com).

Join Tara for Worship on Sunday morning at 10 am. Warren First Presbyterian Church at 300 Market Street in Warren Pennsylvania. A live stream is provided via FaceBook for people out of the region... During Lent Tara is facilitating a book club based on Madeline L'Engle's book A Circle of Quiet. Tuesday mornings at 10;30 am at the church.

Transcript

S7 E7 Resilience: Embracing the Sacred During Everyday Moments with Rev. Ellen Corcella

 [00:00:00] 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: . Hi there, friends of Holy Shenanigans podcast. I am your muse, Tara Lamont Eastman. I am a pastor, a podcaster, and I like to say a practitioner, somebody who practices holy shenanigans or pays attention to it in the world. And I'm so happy to have you here with me as we navigate the challenges and the joys of the season of Lent.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Today we are gonna be doing something a little bit different. We have with us. Reverend Ellen Corcella. She is an author of a book about resilience as well as some others, And Ellen is previously a litigator. a lawyer. And so we're going to be flipping the microphone around and she's got a few questions for me.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Oh, I know how to ask questions, and there's some versions of questions you don't want me to [00:01:00] ask.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Woo. hi Ellen. Thank you for joining us.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Well, hi Tara. I'm excited to be here. I think we both, enjoy examining the spiritual and how that helps us in our life, So I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I love this quote from your book about resilience, You describe resilience as a resource that allows us to keep moving forward rather than remain stuck in our trauma loss and grief.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: You say how important it is and how researchers feel that resilience is something within, but also beyond yourself. That helps us to construct meaning, adapt, navigate, change and try to find center again. And so. Wherever people are whether they're practicing Lent or they're not practicing Lent, I think this conversation around resilience is something that we all need to engage in, 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: and I think that Lent actually is a perfect metaphor or, story [00:02:00] about that sense of wilderness that we often have in our lives. I could see that it's often embedded in people who have had really traumatic experiences. It can be embedded when I was a chaplain in trauma hospitals that sense of what just happened and that need to go through a period of time when you lost your sense of bearing and lost maybe what you thought your sense of meaning was in your life and the concept of resilience. Just sort of how do we manage to get through that space?

Rev. Ellen Corcella: It is individual. It's how you make your sense of meaning, how you might access some creativity to think of a new way of moving forward in life. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. you have. Often talked about the arts and different crafts and painting. I think I wanna open the door there to say that there's so many different ways we can access keys to resilience

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And that are so, so needed in our world [00:03:00] today.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: So I thought Maybe you could talk a little bit about how you came to focus a little bit in your current life about theopoetics and what that means to you and how that opens up a sense of meaning and your spiritual and other life.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I'm still working out my definition of theopoetics, although loosely I'll say it, is engaging with God or the divine in creative means in connection is community in supporting people.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It's kind of like. Craftsmanship and spiritual life blended together, but in a way that flows in and out of community.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So that's my, at least today, if you ask me what my elevator speech for what theopoetics is, that's it.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Okay. I love that. you are in the midst of doing some poetry and some writings in your current studies. And one of the things you've mentioned to me is [00:04:00] Julian of Norwich, and I mentioned that because a lot of my podcasts focus on. Spiritual people who have, used that spirituality to make meaning out of their life or even reframe their life. So you were referencing in something you wrote Julian Norwich and the hazelnut. I think that's important for people 'cause we need something that re grounds us, but it might be in the ordinary as opposed to the extraordinary, as opposed to the Paul moment when he gets knocked off the horse.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: I think that's far more rare than having a moment in life when you go, oh. Okay.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. In the every day. I'll talk about Julian in connection to this because as a young child I remember sitting in. And I was always very busy, active child. My dad liked to call me Tigger 'cause I bounced everywhere I went. sitting still sometimes in those spaces was a challenge for me.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And he would hand me the little prayer card in the back of the pew and the little tiny [00:05:00] pencil and he would say, draw all over this. Fill this

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: up. I was, you know, five or six years old and I was sitting in worship and there was something in that experience for me that still is consistent today, which does connect with Julian's very practical expression of faith.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And mysticism really because I was sitting in a very simple sanctuary with a little tiny golf pencil.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And a little piece of, card stock. But in that space, as I listened that was a beginning point for me where this creative channel helped me to realize that that was a part of, my spiritual practice.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Of course, as a little kid, I had no real significant, like, oh, this is the thing.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It took me some time to get back to that theopoetic. But with the help of folks like Julian of Norwich. And so a little bit about her. She is from the 14th century and she [00:06:00] actually survived the Black Plague as a child,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Her little village.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Over half of the people died she had this appreciation of small things of tiny things, which brings us to this hazelnut.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: The showings is this written account of all of these mystical experiences of Julian, of Norwich. And in this she has conversations with God. And so this is what she says about the hazelnut. And in this, God showed me a little thing, the quantity of the hazelnut lying in the palm of my hand as it seemed. And it was round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding and thought, what may this be? And it was answered generally. Thus, it is all that I made. I marveled how it might last, or I thought it might suddenly have [00:07:00] fallen into nothingness or littleness, and I was answered in my understanding.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It lasts and ever shall for God. Loves it. So have all things their beginning by the love of God. And this little thing, I saw three properties. First God made it. The second God loves it and the third God keeps it. But what is this to me, truly the creator, the keeper, the lover, for I am substantially loved by God.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I may never have fully rest or bliss. That is to say until I be so fastened to God that there is nothing that is made between my God and me. So this little hazelnut for her became this example of something that God made, something that God [00:08:00] loves and something that God keeps as far as like cares for.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: the language is a little bit different than how we would say things now. 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Right.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So many times throughout our days there are many, many little things that could take up our attention. Like a hazelnut,

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: oh, it could be a cup of coffee, it could be a conversation with a friend.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: All these things to remind us that God loves and cares and makes all of these things we're totally surrounded by this expression of love and care and belonging. Which I think for me is a wonderful way to think about resilience. These little tiny, interactions with resilience. There's a phrase that Julian is known for.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: All manner of things be well, and there's a longer version of 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. Sure.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: But I have friends that when things are wonderful or things are hard, we actually will text one another A MOT, [00:09:00] all manner of things be well. And so it's so funny to think about, you know, 14th century, this little hazelnut that.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I'm texting my friends a MOT.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: how would you say that helps you move through the day or move through your ministry? Or even, encourage others in your pastoral care many of us fall into the, things will be better when I get to x.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Right. And it's all about getting to X and sometimes, what mindfulness does we need to figure out what's right with us and, build from there. And right with her was the hazelnut and then she saw God.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. It's the thing. And also recognizing the thing connects us to God and each other.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: people refer to this awareness of the sacred as thin space.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Okay.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Some people attribute it to the Celtic folks. I'm sure there's lots of people that would love to claim it, and that's fine. thin space is sometimes a geographical space [00:10:00] where people feel particularly close to God or the divine, like Iona, right.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: When I was a young person, I got to go to New York City with my school choir and sing at St.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Patrick's Cathedral, I remember walking into that space and being able at 15 to sing 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It was a thin space for

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: me. was this mountaintop experience, but it also was this very. Earthy grounded experience because I mean, like the candles and, and those are things that carry over into everyday lives.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Recognizing these things connect us to the creator of the universe and the creator, you know, loves those things and loves us and keeps us. Just those three meditations I think for me are really helpful.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: when things are challenging.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Sure, that sense of transcendence that we are part of something larger is really a key concept of resilience. I was in the middle of writing [00:11:00] my book, but heard people barking about resilience as individualism and it isn't.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: And resilience really is about connection and that's where I think the transcendent is important. When we feel like we're part of something larger than ourselves, then I think we can give ourselves a reason to keep going. There's the connection to.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: God, to each other and to ourselves. That really are essential to our, our living a full life. And that's a lot different than saying, I need to have X amount of money. I need to have X amount of power. I need to have X amount of whatever.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Right. It's really grounded in spiritual and it's something that can't be taken away. Once you, once you realize that hazelnut things change, right.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. And it's, such a shift because you're, thinking about on one end, you know, what can I attain in this very individual sense to like, oh wait, I'm already in this embrace. Something actually I've learned just [00:12:00] recently um, at one point there was a shift in understanding of the word artist.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: A lot of times people think of artists as the unicorn person who's particularly gifted in something that spends time up in their high tower or in their studio away from the world, right? And so that can be a concept of artists, and I'm sure there are some folks that need that solitary space to achieve what they want to work on on their creative process.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: However, the origin of this word artist was artisan and craftsmen, or craftsperson as we might say today, and that was about working in relationship to a mentor, providing a resource that was needed by community and for community. It was something that people would be compensated for, obviously, [00:13:00] but it wasn't this thing that was just about a thing you make, like in capitalism, it was about a presence that you had as an artisan in a community. It's like you're, you know, the I versus the we.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: We together?

Rev. Ellen Corcella: It's so eyeopening when we learn those things and, how things go way back to community. So I'm wondering if you might have a meditation or a practice or a an art that you use maybe on a daily basis or with your congregation to help people or to remind people that they can use these things, whether good at it or not, to create a different perspective on their life, which then opens up doors to different possibilities, which I might call creativity, but you know.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: A lot of things that I use with my people and for myself, if I'm studying a particular [00:14:00] scripture I will use Lectio Divina. is called Holy Reading you read a text, , several times through, you pay attention to initially what word stands out to you. Then you pay attention to perhaps a memory or an emotion that comes up for you in that reading.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And then finally you look at it and say, well, what is the prompt of this text? Is there an action or a response that I need to engage in? That's a very different way of reading text and scripture than just for facts or details. You're looking at it from many different lenses.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And so again, a lot of this is helping people to slow down,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Because we all are going so quickly through life. And then there's also the, Visio Divina aspect of that. If there's a, piece of artwork, or you can combine the Lectio with the Vizio and look at a piece of writing and then create a piece of doodling art in [00:15:00] response to that text.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So those are some things that I've used in the past. But for myself, a lot of times poetry is a love language that came to me when I was a young person. I love to read it and I love to write it. So there's times that I will look at a text or sometimes look at a poem that's just out in the world and do a spiritual contemplation in conversation with another poem. 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: For those of us who are sometimes just getting off the ground, what would be the kind of thing you might ask a poem?

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Have you ever thought of opening up a book of poetry and writing a prayerful response 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: No, that's why I'm intrigued, although I've felt a prayerful response, but I've never just sat down and, wrote a. Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So this poem is don't miss out book right now for the Journey of a Lifetime. Dekar is the [00:16:00] author. And this is a beautiful love poem. And I'll encourage folks to go find it and read it. And it's this just beautiful poem this couple is gonna go away on this big trip.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and then, essentially they realize that the place that they wanna be is just with each other. And so the place where they're going doesn't matter so much. But there's this emphasis in the end of the poem. We were this red arrow pointing straight at who we are and you are here.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And that phrase you are here really reminded me of that hazelnut, 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: right? It's right here before us. And so, I was thinking about you are here. And when I wrote the response poem, it was a random Tuesday morning. Lots of things going on in my everyday life. And I was like, oh, what are the sacred things in this everyday Tuesday morning, in the middle of the winter[00:17:00] 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: that I can express some gratitude for?

Rev. Ellen Corcella: So did you want to read the Thin Space Day for

Rev. Ellen Corcella: the listeners? 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: thin Space Day, St. Julian tried to show me by way of an unassuming, hazelnut thin spaces are within my reach everywhere, every day to find thin space. I don't have to go on a pilgrimage to Spain.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Walk the Camino de Santiago or take a rickety boat to Scotland's isle of Iona or board a Greyhound bus to New York City and light a candle at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Common time, thin spaces are in my carpool route to my nine to five. That's not a nine to five. My walk to the mailbox. My breath between good morning, [00:18:00] how are you and their response, fine.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: My leftover mashed potato chicken fingers lunch at my desk, my scrolling for something to fill my craving or something more than another cup of office coffee talk and my anticipated evening commute back home sweet to the familiar and warm. Like Julian's, majestic, made, loved, and kept hazelnut. Every pilgrimage made, loved, kept. If only I look, see, and hear the sacred pointing to where I am singing. Your thin space is right here. Made, loved, kept right here.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: [00:19:00] Thank you. Your poem just hits me more impactfully now than it did when I just sort of read it earlier. And maybe that's why ordinary things sometimes passes by, or we need to remember the significance of.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: The ordinary thing, you know my daughter brought into our prayer when we do say it before a meal, thank you to the farmers who grew the plants to make the meal or you know, did the fishing or whatever.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And bless the hands who made it 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: yeah. 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: And it seems to me that's an extension of that in any event, I'm wondering if there was anything you'd like to add in relation to how this transforms into our lenten journey, 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: there are values to taking time away and going on a pilgrimage, that can also be a part of that everyday blessing. But I think for [00:20:00] me, what is really important and maybe could be helpful for the folks, , listening is that it's about this mountaintop and valley. Together. And I know it's hard in our minds to think about the mountains, the mountain and the valleys, the valley. But God, the divine is with us in the mountain as well as all the way down into that valley. And that presence, is really about helping us to notice those thin spaces wherever we go. yes, I wanna go to the isle of Iona someday. know, I wanna experience that, but I also need to appreciate the hazelnuts of my life.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: see the sacred in those hazelnuts, you know, cold iced coffee that just is

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: For, a, everyday common Tuesday.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So I live in the northeast and this winter in particular has been very [00:21:00] difficult. I mean, for lots of folks. But it's been so cold for so long that I think perhaps this resilience is something I've, grown up with and have to learn because I've been in this region my whole life.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: You know, what winter is here, how are we going to navigate this time? how are we going to Find a blessing in this day? And so for me that seeking of gratitude has been something that has been helpful for me as far as resilience goes. Yeah.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Well, that's great. I really appreciated your, common sense and observations about life. Like holy shenanigans. All we had to do was look at our iced coffee and there was God, right. Who knew? Right.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: how many hands. Are involved in that cup of coffee , from the person who plants those plants and harvest those plants and they process those beans and then it travels to wherever you are. And whether you're making it at home, maybe you're grinding those [00:22:00] beans 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and that's tactile experience for you.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Those opportunities to be thinking all manner of things be well, to take note of those thin spaces in our everyday is right before us. when I say all manner of things be well, that does not discount the very hard things of life. If you connect this to Ignatian practices of reviewing your day, you know, what are the joys?

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: What are the desolation and the difficulties

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And review those and be like, okay, God, where were you? In the midst of both the consolation and the desolation. And so when I say all manner of things be well, or I text my friends AMOT, it's saying, in both, in all of it, you are loved, you are kept, you are made.

Rev. Ellen Corcella: That's perfect. And that may be a perfect way for me to end my questioning it was really enjoyable. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Whew, [00:23:00] I, can get down off the stand. I did

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: it. 

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Off the stand. You don't have to tell the truth anymore. No, I'm joking.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes, I do. Ellen, could you say a little bit about your books, because I want our listeners, even though you interviewed me could you tell the titles of your books and where they can find them?

Rev. Ellen Corcella: The book is Walk With Me, A Journey Through the Landscape of Trauma. And you can find it on Amazon, you can find it on any platform that you like to purchase your books on. And also through Book Baby Publishing store

Rev. Ellen Corcella: Access to my other writings access to my podcasts. The Faith and Resilience Podcast. can all be at my website, which is www ellen Corcella.com. Corcella is COR. C-E-L-L-A.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It is a joy to, be with you once again and to keep up our holy shenanigans wherever

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: we are

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: dear friends we pray [00:24:00] that and hope that your Lenin journey is one where you can claim that phrase, all manner of things, be well. If you prefer to turn it into a hashtag AMOT or a text message. And if I could, I would send you all that little message, AMOT, knowing that you are. Held you are made and you are always beloved by God.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I am your holy shenanigans muse. Tara Lamont Eastman. Thank you for joining Ellen and I for holy shenanigans. That surprise, encourage, redirect, and turn life upside down all in the name of love. This is an unpredictable spiritual adventure that is always sacred, but never, ever stuffy. see you next time.